'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: FROM A LAW PROFESSOR IN FORT LAUDERDALE (Scroll Down)
On Tuesday morning while Waymon and I were waiting for our luggage, we heard a weird announcement come over the airport's PA system. It said that "a man who lies with another man as he would a woman shall be subject to death." Upon hearing this twice, we looked for security or a phone, but could not find either one. We went home, and I called the airport when I woke up that morning. After talking with several different people, I finally was able to talk to the manager of the airport. He seemed disinterested, and just closed by saying that he was "sorry for the inconvenience." I waited one day to see if he would follow up on the complaint.
Deb Price: Evangelical Preacher Rejects Hell, Spreads Gospel of Inclusion
How an Evangelical preacher stopped believing in hell and started embracing the gay community.
Jim Hightower: DECONSTRUCTING IRAQ'S RECONSTRUCTION (jimhightower.com)
A new report by a federal oversight agency - the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction - examined eight projects [in Iraq] that the U.S. has officially declared successful. The agency found that seven of them no longer function properly, due to such factors as poor initial construction, lack of any maintenance, and simple neglect.
Barbara Ehrenreich: Your Local News -- Dateline New Delhi
With a local news outlet in California recruiting reporters in India, no one can pretend any longer that we have a global monopoly on intellect and innovation.
Annalee Newitz: "Heroes": The TV Show with Comic Book Edge and Political Bite
In the TV show "Heroes" there are no terrorists -- only heroes whose powers go wrong and destroy New York in the process. In other words, the only menace to the United States is its own citizens.
Jim Hightower: WHY IMPORT SO MUCH FOOD? (jimhightower.com)
... inspections by the Food and Drug Administration are a cruel joke. Some 9 million shiploads of foreign food came into our ports last year, yet the FDA sampled only about 20,000. That's barely one percent! Foreign suppliers know this, so they've turned America into an easy-access dumping ground for fish, grains, fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, and other foods tainted with everything from cancer-causing toxins to illegal veterinary drugs.
Tim Harford: The Mystery of the 5-Cent Coca-Cola (slate.com)
Why it's so hard for companies to raise prices.
Luaine Lee: Aidan Quinn buries himself in another role in HBO movie (McClatchy-Tribune News Service; Posted on popmatters.com)
Recently, actor Aidan Quinn was on his roof during a downpour trying to dislodge leaves clogging the gutters. That might've been an unpleasant job for most. But for Quinn it was a validation.
French connections (guardian.co.uk)
From Michael Moore's healthcare exposé to the Coen brothers' Tex-Mex shootout, Peter Bradshaw picks the top 10 films at Cannes.
A floral tribute (guardian.co.uk)
For 17 years, Christopher Lloyd, who died in 2006, wrote a much-loved gardening column for the Guardian. Here, Beth Chatto salutes her friend's talent, followed an extract from a new collection of Lloyd's distinctive and opinionated writing.
Reader Suggestion
Bubba
My baby needs to be able to defend his-self in his daycare class cuz if he doesn't THE TERRORISTS HAVE ALL READY WON!!!
BBC NEWS | Americas | Illinois baby obtains gun permit
Vic
(almost) in AK
Thanks, Vic!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast til mid-afternoon.
Makes Acting Debut
Dan Rather
There were gasps of surprise at ABC's fall-schedule announcement this week when veteran TV newsman Dan Rather popped up as an actor in clips for "Dirty Sexy Money," a new drama about a wealthy, misbehaving New York family.
The role wasn't exactly a stretch. Rather plays a reporter at a fancy dinner party pressing a politician, portrayed by William Baldwin, about his future political plans.
Rather initially said no when the show's executive producer and director, Peter Horton, called to ask if he'd be interested. News people occasionally pop up in fictional settings, like CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday's "Gilmore Girls" series finale, but it is frowned upon at CBS News - his former home for decades - and Rather had never done it.
Then he gave it a second thought. It might be an easy way to remind people that he's still working, with his own weekly news show on HD Net.
Dan Rather
Set Up Mideast Science Fund
Nobel Laureates
Nobel laureates wrapped up Wednesday two days of brainstorming on the challenges facing Arab and Israeli youths with plans to set up a science fund for Middle East development.
"I think everybody agrees with our suggestion to create a Middle East science fund" to develop research and improve education for Jordanians, Palestinians and Israelis, Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel said.
The 10-million-dollar fund will be managed by the King Abdullah II Fund for Development, which co-organised the gathering with Wiesel's Foundation for Humanity, organisers said in the ancient city of Petra.
King Abdullah II thanked the 40 Nobel laureates and prominent figures who attended the conference and reminded them that "the future of this land is the youth."
Nobel Laureates
Renewed For 2 More Seasons
'24'
The clock on "24" will keep ticking for two more seasons
Fox's unusually late renewal for the Emmy-winning thriller will allow Jack Bauer to keep saving the day through the 2008-09 season, which will be the series' eighth.
Series star Kiefer Sutherland already is locked to stay with the show through May 2009.
Aside from Sutherland, "24" will return with a new cast (some old favorites might return in different roles) and a new, non-Los Angeles location, with the producers even contemplating telling the story from two locations.
'24'
Name That Tune
Hillary Clinton
Fresh from an eardrum-jarring mangling of the US national anthem, Hillary Clinton was again searching for a tune Wednesday, calling on supporters to choose her 2008 campaign song.
In a tongue-in-cheek message on her website, the Democratic presidential front-runner implored Americans to help her on a decision her team had been been "struggling with, debating and agonising over for months."
Clinton offered fans a list of songs to choose from, in a Eurovision contest-style online vote for a favorite, including U2's "City of Blinding Lights" and "Beautiful Day" to "I'm a Believer" by Smash Mouth and "Ready to Run" by the Dixie Chicks.
Also listed in the top 10 were "Get Ready" by the Temptations and "Rock This Country" by Canadian-born country crossover songstress Shania Twain. Voters could also add their own alternative candidate song.
Hillary Clinton
Hospital News
Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley is in intensive care after suffering a stroke in western Iowa, a publicist said Wednesday.
The 78-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was listed in guarded condition at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., said Susan Clary, a publicist for the musician's management team.
Diddley, who has a history of hypertension and diabetes, was hospitalized Sunday following a concert in Council Bluffs in which he acted disoriented, she said.
Tests indicated that the stroke affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, Clary said.
Bo Diddley
Too Much Smoke
Bono
Bono is grappling with a new version of the unforgettable fire, and it has nothing to do with his band's 1984 album: The rocker-activist is embroiled in a flap over fireplaces at his Manhattan apartment building.
The U2 frontman has told co-op board members at the stately San Remo that smoke from other residents' fireplaces is wafting into the penthouse duplex he shares with his family, The New York Times reported.
The building's fireplaces have long-standing problems, said Leni May, the wife of board member Peter May.
"Bono was so nice," she said. "He said, 'Listen, whatever I can do to get these things working, but it's emptying into my apartment and I can't have smoke like that.'" The singer told the board that one of his four children has asthma, Leni May said.
Bono
Telethon In Las Vegas
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis' annual Labor Day telethon to fight muscular dystrophy, which aired from Las Vegas last year, will return this year.
The broadcast, which benefits the Muscular Dystrophy Association, will air Sept. 2-3 from the South Point hotel-casino south of the Las Vegas Strip, organizers said Wednesday.
Lewis moved the telethon from its longtime home in Los Angeles last year, saying it had been overshadowed by other productions there.
Jerry Lewis
Marshals Move
Joe Francis
Florida prosecutors have lost their fight to stop federal marshals from taking the multimillionaire founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series to Nevada on tax evasion charges.
The marshals moved Joe Francis, 34, from a Panama City jail cell late Monday to rural Jackson County near the Georgia-Alabama border in preparation to move him to Nevada.
Florida prosecutors wanted Francis, who completed a 35-day contempt of court sentence this week, to first face state charges involving the sexual exploitation of minors.
Joe Francis
Virus Decimates Suburban Birds
West Nile
Birds that once flourished in suburban skies, including robins, bluebirds and crows, have been devastated by West Nile virus, a study found.
Populations of seven species have had dramatic declines across the continent since West Nile emerged in the United States in 1999, according to a first-of-its-kind study. The research, to be published Thursday by the journal Nature, compared 26 years of bird breeding surveys to quantify what had been known anecdotally.
It hit the seven species - American crow, blue jay, tufted titmouse, American robin, house wren, chickadee and Eastern bluebird - hard enough to be scientifically significant. Only the blue jay and house wren bounced back, in 2005.
The hardest-hit species has been the American crow. Nationwide, about one-third of crows have been killed by West Nile, said study lead author Shannon LaDeau, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington. The species was on the rise until 1999.
West Nile
Publication Controversy
Bible
More than 800 Hong Kong residents have called on authorities to reclassify the Bible as "indecent" due to its sexual and violent content, following an uproar over a sex column in a university student journal.
A spokesperson for Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible by noon Wednesday.
The complaints follow the launch of an anonymous Web site -- www.truthbible.net -- which said the holy book "made one tremble" given its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.
The Web site said the Bible's sexual content "far exceeds" that of a recent sex column published in the Chinese University's "Student Press" magazine, which had asked readers whether they'd ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.
Bible
Alaskan Oil Spills
Unmitigated Greed
Severe company budget cuts at a time when BP PLC was making huge profits put pressure on managers to ignore corrosion protection at the oil company's North Slope pipelines that sprung leaks last year, according to internal company documents.
A House committee investigating the Alaska spills, which forced a partial shutdown of Prudhoe Bay oil production last summer, released a half dozen e-mails and other documents that showed that anticorrosion programs repeatedly were targeted for cost cutting, including on the lines that eventually failed.
"BP field managers were being asked to choose between saving money and critical maintenance," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. He said the cost-cutting from 1999 through 2005 came at a time London-based BP PLC made a total of more than $106 billion in profits.
Unmitigated Greed
Visit Sacramento
Wayward Whales
Two humpback whales that made a 90-mile river journey from San Francisco to the outskirts of Sacramento have injuries that appear to have come from a propeller, marine experts said Wednesday.
The condition of the whales, believed to be a mother and her calf, was diagnosed by researchers from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito using photos taken Wednesday in the Port of Sacramento and enlarged on computer screens.
Although the injuries appear to be growing, the whales will probably not need treatment if they can be returned to their natural sea water habitat, researchers said. The salty ocean water is cleaner than the fresh water in the port, helping to heal such cuts in the mammals.
Biologists planned to play the familiar sounds of humpback whales underwater on Thursday to lure the whales out of the basin and toward San Francisco Bay, Gulland said. They will play the sounds from a boat as the tide goes out.
Wayward Whales
May Be Extended
British Copyright Laws
British copyright laws should be extended to prevent aging artists such as Paul McCartney and Cliff Richard from missing out on royalties later in life, an influential committee of British lawmakers said Wednesday.
McCartney, 64, and Richard, 66, are among some 7,000 people, including backing singers, who are on the verge of losing royalties for their early music releases because of a 50-year limit on copyright for sound recordings.
They want Britain to match the 95-year copyright period granted for recorded music in the United States, which would allow them to benefit financially from an Internet-driven revival of back catalogs.
British Copyright Laws
Art Records Set
Sotheby's
Records were shattered on Tuesday at Sotheby's $255 million auction of contemporary and postwar art, the biggest in history, which was led by a $73 million Rothko and a $53 million Bacon.
Both works obliterated the old mark for any postwar work at auction of $27.1 million set last November and far exceeded their pre-sale estimates, ushering in a new world of higher prices for contemporary art.
Records were set for 15 artists in all, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose untitled work from 1981 fetched $14.6 million including commission, about twice its estimate and nearly three times the artist's old record. The work was being sold by the Israel Museum.
Other artists setting new records included Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Prince, Tom Wesselmann, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis and Dan Flavin.
Sotheby's
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